Porting Duke Nukem 3D Via chui's SDL/fully porting Hexen2

[Captain Dreamcast]

Hum, I'll give it a swirl as well, the more the merrier!

Even if I find a way to make it work, I'm gonna need someone's help to check if it boots on a real console.

My problem:

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Broken CD-R writer --> no lulz

[Anthony817]

If you can make this work, we can test it!

Danke soviel! Du bist die beste!(I know my Deutsche is bad, but I love using it, I have been learning it for 4 years now)

I think you will be my new best friend if you can port these!

[Captain Dreamcast]

Looks interesting.


Bero's readme sure helped me to understand how this is supposed to work. But I've still got one ace up my sleeve, taa-daa: *holds up Coder's Cable*. Normally, I use it to backup my saves, but according to the readme, it should also work with Hexen II, since the 1ST_READ.BIN is not yet scrambled. Sooo, the next step is getting my Cable and the two programs ready.

[EDIT] Either 1ST_READ.BIN is not yet scrambled or there's gonna be trouble with dahack. I think it's the former, but DC Tool should make things clear. [/EDIT]

Also, like many other id games, it uses the PAK archive. Are there really just two archives and that's it? Gotta investigate.

[Anthony817]

Awesome! Keep us updated!

[Favrenation]

Thanks a lot!

[Captain Dreamcast]

I'm done downloading Hexen (and installing it to get my hands on the PAK archives). What can I say? Up to now, everything looks perfect. Just like the readme stated, there's a data1 folder, as well as two PAK archives inside it and some more stuff I'm gonna include to be 100% sure.

On a completely unrelated note, could it be that the Setup automatically installed the German version on my PC? I'm gonna know soon enough, the Coder's Cable is almost ready... FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

[Anthony817]

Nice! Could you also look at Portal to Pravius too please? It has extra missions and will fit on 1 CD with the Full game too.

[Captain Dreamcast]

Whoa, let's get Hexen II started first, okay

I've tried the Coder's cable, and surprise, it didn't work as expected
All there was was a text saying: "Press Y after inserting game disc." It's not entirely worthless, since I know now that The 1ST_READ.BIN actually works. Also, Uploading the 100MB of the game to the would have taken about 4 hours.

Thus, I have examined the 1ST_READ.BIN further with a Hex editor:

According to DCTOOL, it's scrambled already. This sucks, because we can't say what the starting LBA value is. Since the Binary was launched in 2002 before data/data layouts became the norm, I hex-checked the binary for "960000", the hex-equivalent of 11702, the LBA value for EVERY audio/data disc ever made. Thankfully, there have been plenty of them around, so I'm pretty sure 11702 is the starting value.

Now I'll try and make a first selfboot disc using the antique audio/data layout. If it doesn't work, it's either
1. My CD-RW writer acting up
2. The fact that even Bero wasn't so sure about the commercial version himself

I'll try it with NullDC, Chankast and Makaron, though I can't be sure wether it's compatible or not...

[Favrenation]

If you need a tester I got a few blank CD's I can waste.

[alex]

Captain Dreamcast
Homebrew games (written in KOS) do not have LBA protection.
You need just convert 1ST_READ.BIN in scramble format, create IP.BIN and burn it on the disc using BootDreams or any other program for make Dreamcast bootable CD